UAA President, said that China was increasingly able to leverage its economic and strategic weight in countries such as Thailand to seek the forcible return of individuals in disregard of international human rights conventions and norms. In a 2015 Reuters report, Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal was reported to have reviewed an unnamed Uyghur man's asylum application from September 2011. The review cited sworn testimony from UAA President Alim Seytoff that, "there is an extensive network of spies including some Uyghurs, who regularly monitor the activities of Uyghurs throughout the Western world and report on their activities to the PRC (People’s Republic of China) authorities." On August 16, 2016, the Board of Directors of the UAA voted to separate the UAA from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). In a 2016 interview with CNN, UAA President Ilshat Hassan said that his family had faced repeated harassment over his activism. On October 18, 2019, an exhibition named "A Prison Without Walls — East Turkestan Today", was opened, featuring photographs of re-education camps, the everyday lives of Uighurs and the July 2009 Urumqi riots opened at Taipei's 228 Memorial Museum. The exhibition was originally organized by the UAA and the One Voice, One Step initiative and has been presented in 33 cities in 15 countries. The exhibition was to run for one month. In a 2019 CNN interview, Nury Turkel, former head of the Uyghur American Association and chairman of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, discussing cybersecurity issues encountered by these organizations, reported that the UAA and UHRP, "were constantly attacked. Our websites were shut down at times, and I was personally the target of email-based hacking attempts." Organization As of late 2008, the Uyghur American Association had approximately 600 members. More than 200 members attended the Eighth Congress of the UAA in 2016. The organization has a president and a board of directors which, as of the founding in 1998, consisted of nine members: Chairman, Vice Chairman, General Secretary, Treasurer, Director of Public Relations, Director of Education, Director of Communication, Director of Publication, and Director of Cultural Affairs. The UAA has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. As of 2005, the UAA's website was one of the two most active websites among Uyghur migrants. The UAA website has been described as a key information provider on Uyghur issues. The UAA renounces the use of violence to achieve political ends. Presidents